The Republican National Convention, held July 18 to 21, 2016 in Cleveland, Ohio, was a spectacle. On display was over-the-top partisan behavior that was shocking in its brazenness and intensity.

One thing stood out for me as I watched in horror 19 months ago: Michael Flynn, retired U.S. Army general criticized Hillary Clinton, suggested that she should resign from the campaign, accused her of unspecified crimes, and whipped the crowd into a frenzy chanting, “Lock Her Up.” That was all stunning to observe; the part that stood out for me, however, was this line:

“I use hashtag Never Hillary,” Flynn, 58 years old at the time, said.

Why would Trump supporters want to know what hashtag Flynn used? Why was Flynn using a hashtag? What did this mean?

I know a lot more now than I knew at the time about how social media can be used to push propaganda. The indictment released Friday in the special counsel’s investigation into Russian interference in the presidential campaign may provide an answer to the questions that have haunted me since that disturbing day in 2016.

On page 20 of the indictment, a table provides information about political advertising bought by the defendants, Russian nationals, who used “fictitious U.S. personas created and used by the ORGANIZATION on social media.” (from page 19) An advertisement was purchased June 30, 2016, with this content:

An ad was purchased by at least one persona account created in Saint Petersburg, and three weeks later Michael Flynn pushed the hashtag out at the Republican National Convention.

Why might he have done this?

At the time I heard him say it, I wondered how many Trump supporters were following Flynn on Twitter or Facebook. Maybe, I thought, the Trump campaign and the GOP had harnessed the power of social media and turned angry white voters in the Midwest and coal country into tech-savvy influencers. Somehow, that did not seem reasonable to me. (That is the story Brad Parscale and Jared Kushner, self-styled data geniuses of the Trump campaign, told to numerous reporters in the months after their team's surprise win.)

There is another reason to signal the use of a hashtag from the podium of a worldwide-televised event. When Flynn announced that hashtag, he may have been signalling cells of paid troll warriors, in Russia, the U.S., and other places, to head to that hashtag to connect with newly created propaganda - memes, ads, and talking points - to push in the coming days and weeks.

I did a search to see what kind of content was attached to this hashtag when Flynn promoted it at the RNC. Any content that has since been deleted would not show up in an advanced search, but the content I did find was very interesting. I cannot definitively say that all the content was created by paid professionals working on the Russian operation, but it looks like much of it may have been.

It is important to note that the memes created were designed to appeal to potential voters who did not want to vote Clinton. The Russian information war was “primarily intended to communicate derogatory information about Hillary Clinton, to denigrate other candidates such as Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, and to support Bernie Sanders and then-candidate Donald Trump.” (from page 17 of the indictment).

The #GameofThrones hashtag is used, possibly to bring in people who were fans of the television show who might not otherwise be interested. One post uses the hashtag #Milo in combination with #NeverHillary. Another post links to Prison Planet, sending interested content-pushers to wingnut conspiracists Alex Jones, Paul Joseph Watson, and InfoWars. This would help the paid trolls, Russian and American, find the content Flynn (or those directing him) wanted them to push.

Did Michael Flynn knowingly push a hashtag created under fraudulent circumstances in a U.S. election, which would be a violation of federal election law? I don’t know, but I would bet that the special counsel’s team does.

A link to the 37-page indictment of 13 Russian nationals and three Russian companies (with numerous shell companies created to hide fraudulent personas and ad buys) can be found here.https://www.justice.gov/file/1035477/download

An article in USA Today from August 2016 highlighted some of the issues involved when retired military leaders speak out politically. In the article former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey, a four-star Army general, explains that running for office, like Dwight Eisenhower did after a military career, is different from advocating for a particular side in a political contest:

"'If they choose to run themselves, they become accountable to voters,' he wrote in Defense One, a website that focuses on defense and national security trends. 'In simply advocating — or giving speeches — they are not.'"

Not accountable to American voters, but perhaps accountable to his handlers in the Kremlin?

​A selection of available content from Twitter using the hashtag #NeverHillary during the period of the Republican National Convention is included below.

Note the nonstandard plural spelling - "commys" instead of "commies" - that may be a sign of foreign-created content. Also, this may be an early use of the word "libtard." which was popular among harassing trolls during and after the campaign.

This meme accuses Clinton of wanting to build a wall. This may be an example of a paid content creator who got the messages mixed up.

#FreeMilo - perhaps mixing up Julian Assange, currently hiding out in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to avoid charges, with Milo Yiannopoulos, alt-right provocateur?

Criticism of Clinton's hair has been a theme of critics since the 1990s.

The anti-fracking message is designed to appeal to left-leaning voters and encourage them to vote against Clinton. They would never be swayed to vote for Trump, but convincing people to vote for Sanders, Johnson, or Stein, or to simply stay home, became a very common theme by November.

The Trump family ties to organized crime go back at least to Fred Trump, father of Donald. The FBI file on Fred Trump was released in October 2016.

According to Politico, he most recent memo in the file is from 1991. While the memo is highly redacted, there is a check mark next to a line identifying the source of information as OCIS, which stands for the FBI’s Mob Organized Crime Information System. Notes on the document state that it came from a confidential source.